87580: Zakaah is due on invested wealth and on any profit made

I have some money that I invested in an Islamic bank, and I am spending the profits made on my wife and children, on essential needs, and I need every last penny of it. I want to pay zakaah on it, so should I give the 2.5% on the accumulated sum, in which case I will not be able to spend on my children because it will be a large amount of the profits? Or should I pay from the profits of this year only, then it will be a small amount? I want to keep the capital as it is, because it is helping us a great deal with our living expenses.

Praise be to Allaah.

Invested wealth that
produces a profit is subject to zakaah on it and the profit after one year
has passed since the capital was acquired, if it reaches the nisaab.

Ibn Qudaamah said in
al-Mughni (2/258): The profit on money invested in trade should be added
to the capital if one year has passed since the capital was acquired, and
zakaah must be paid on the total amount. And he said: We do not know of any
difference of opinion concerning that. End quote.

Based on this, you have to
pay zakaah on the total amount (the capital and the profit).

If we assume that this will
affect your spending on your children, or will mean that you have to take
something from the capital, this does not change the ruling. It is known
that a person may be obliged to pay zakaah because he owns the nisaab and he
may also be entitled to zakaah, because what he has is not sufficient.

Shaykh Ibn ‘Uthaymeen (may
Allaah have mercy on him) said: If someone were to say: How can a person pay
zakaah and also be entitled to take zakaah?

We say: there is nothing
strange about that. If a person has one or two nisaabs that are not
sufficient for him to live on, but they have been with him for a year, we
say that we will give him his living expenses and we will tell him to pay
zakaah, and there is no contradiction. End quote from al-Sharh
al-Mumti’ (2/562).

You should rest assured
that zakaah does not decrease wealth, rather it blesses it and causes it to
grow and increase. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon
him) attested to that and said: “Charity does not decrease wealth. No one
forgives, but Allaah increases him in honour, and no one humbles himself
before Allaah but Allaah raises him in status.” Narrated by Muslim (2588).
And al-Tirmidhi (2325) narrated it with the wording: “Three things I swear
to you and narrate to you, so learn them: no person’s wealth decreases
because of charity, no person is wronged and bears it with patience but
Allaah will increase him in honour, and no person opens the door of begging
but Allaah will open the door of poverty to him.” Classed as saheeh by
al-Albaani in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi.